6 November – 4 December 2021
BRANCUSI FILMS
Constantin Brancusi

The Island Club presents an anthology of films by Constantin Brancusi from the collections of The Centre Pompidou – National Museum of Modern Art in France. Organised in seven chapters (Brancusi Films, The Studio, Lights, Materials, Bestiary, Portraits and Self-Portraits, Dance, Voyages), the films comprise a fertile dialogue between Brancusi’s pioneering sculptural work and the new technology of the moving image.

“Better than any artist of his generation, Brancusi develops a full comprehension of the revolution which analogue reproductive means (photography and film) were to bring to our understanding of works of art. Therefore, the artist begins to look for the essence of the work of art in its reproduction, and in the impetus, shock, and energy generated by the latter. The films comprise a series of explosive games with light and material, movement and frame, realised through countless experiments with the various conditions under which a single work of art can be captured.” (Centre George Pompidou, Images sans fin, 2011)

Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957) was a Romanian sculptor who lived and worked in France. Born to a poor rural family in the Carpathian Mountains, he exhibited an early interest in Romanian folk art traditions and a talent in wood carving. He abandoned his home at the age of nine and, after a period of roaming and studying in Craiova, Bucharest, and Munich, he took residence in France, studying with Antonin Mercié at the National School of Fine Arts. His work is characterised by sharp geometrical lines and a sense of freedom, balance, and gravity. Regarded as a key representative of Modern sculpture, Brancusi’s work had a significant influence on subsequent generations of artists. His notorious legal battle with the U.S. customs during the import of his work, Bird in Space, is a landmark in the definition and understanding of Modern and Contemporary art.

Works: Constantin Brancusi, Les films de Brancusi, 1923 – 1939. Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne–Centre de création industrielle © Succession Brancusi – All rights reserved (Adagp) 2021 © Centre Pompidou, MNAM–CCI.